Delerium - Semantic Spaces

Label: Nettwerk
Catologue Number: W2-30092
Format: CD
Date: 1994
Style: Ethno-Techno/Ambient Pop
Rating: 7/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Most people know Delerium because of the success of the International chart topping Silence or rather the seemingly thousands of trance remixes of Silence. Others will also know Delerium as the new age ambient dance project of Front Line Assembly. However before Silence bought Messers Leeb and Fulber fame and possible fortune, Delerium was very much an underground act. Their early albums had been experiments in dark caustic ambience; with Semantic Spaces they left this far behind and began their journey into the realms of ethno dance pop.

Semantic Spaces manages to bridge the gaps between the old and the new Delerium. We have the euro dance edge as shown on Flowers become Screens and Incantation but we also have the heavier atmospheric tones of tracks such as Metamorphosis and Sensorium. The thing that holds together Semantic Spaces however is the way in which the music ebbs and flows, beautiful melody lines mix with tightly programmed bass lines and a web of vocals delivered in style by Kirsty Thrisk.

This blend also sounds honest and pure with it's own identity, sure there are Enigma-esqe moments, the overuse of Georgarian chants sample being the only real weak point. However Semantic Spaces makes to drag itself from falling into the trap of being aimless or fluffy. Textural rich and with great programming Semantic Spaces may have not been the most ground breaking of albums, it however was and still stands as one of the finest examples in the genre. Sadly it’s a genre bloated with more tied dyed hippy bollocks than the soundtrack to Hair.

Semantic Spaces may have seen the Delerium of old buried, but at the same time it offered something new and exciting for the band. This potential was reached with the next album Karma. Later releases would see Delerium destroy the momentum and fall into the trap of making bland coffee table music for new age crystal shops or even blander commercial dance pop with a legion of guest vocalists.